by Victoria Clarke
Today Employment and Support Allowance replaces incapacity benefit and income support paid on incapacity grounds for new customers. It’s part of the government’s shake-up of welfare reform. So, what does this have to do with online learning? Benefits legislation is complex and constantly changing. The Institute of Revenues, Rating and Valuation (IRRV) started working with Nelson Croom back in 2003 to develop the Euclidian suite of online programmes in Council Tax, Business Rates, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit. Since then they’ve been able to update their programmes and roll out changes to users as needed (with no frustrating delays while new materials are being printed or the obvious cost associations). The introduction of the ESA was announced back in March this year. Within two months of the legislation being laid the ESA course was launched – even before official guidance was released – allowing benefits practitioners to get up to speed and ready to hit the ground running today. Since then, more than 2000 of them have taken advantage of the convenience of keeping themselves up to date in this way. The IRRV’s ESA course has also been shortlisted in the World of Learning Awards as Rapid eLearning Solution of the Year. Just getting the course put together – the IRRV used our technology to create most of the course themselves – in this short space of time is an achievement and we’re delighted that the awards judges agreed. We wish the IRRV all the best for the night!
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